Under a landmark U.S.-Saudi security deal that the Biden administration is reportedly finalizing, the United States could be closer than ever to jumpstarting Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program –– and brushing off more than a decade of warnings not to.
Since the start of its war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has experienced a massive population exodus.
The new agreement between the terrorist group Hamas and Fatah, the political party of the Palestinian Authority, to form a unity government would — if implemented — threaten Israel, hurt the Palestinian people and create new obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace. No one who seeks peace should support it.
…supporting an enhancement of India's naval capabilities marks the logical next step. It aligns with America's interest in countering an increasingly assertive China, and it helps to deepen the already-robust bilateral ties between Washington and New Delhi.
Up to now, Washington and its international partners have been loath to retaliate forcefully to Houthi aggression, fearful of precipitating a wider Mideast war. But the lack of a serious Western response has only emboldened the Houthis further, to the point where the group is now threatening to target America's regional presence directly.
As such, the current discussion about strengthening lines of communication is little more than political theater.
Since the U.S.'s abrupt departure from Afghanistan, the Taliban government has opened exten- sive contacts with China, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, and the Gulf States and some have elevated their ties to the ambassadorial level. No region has more at stake in Afghanistan's evolution than Central Asia and none follow developments there more closely. The U.S. should expand its C5+1 ties with Central Asia to include the sharing of information and discussion of policy choices re- garding Afghanistan. Europe and other friendly powers should do likewise.
Nor would Pezeshkian be the first “moderate” Iranian president to disappoint those hoping for real change in Tehran.
Iran's involvement is just part of a much larger story. All of the available evidence suggests that today's "pro-Palestine" activism is an instrument of statecraft—one that is actively being weaponized against the U.S. by an array of hostile actors.
This week’s NATO summit in Washington is, by any measure, a grand affair, full of the pomp and ceremony befitting the bloc’s 75th anniversary. It also offers up a useful opportunity to reflect on the state of the most successful military alliance in history.
Deterrence and containment are as critical to U.S. global strategy today as they were during the Cold War. NATO has been a lynchpin in that strategic effort.
Thus, the U.S. approach to an Israel-Hezbollah war – i.e., the extent to which Washington sticks by its closest regional ally as deaths mount in southern Lebanon – will have huge implications for the strategic calculations to come in Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing as they each plot their next expansionist moves.
In other words, the Palestinian Authority is asking the international community to empower one failed state to rebuild another.
The league’s latest behavior continues its thoroughgoing capitulation to China in pursuit of profit.
It has become painfully clear that America is losing the information war in the Middle East.
On one hand, the proposal would not put Hamas permanently out of business, which makes it a non-starter for Israel. On the other hand, it would “not allow Hamas to re-arm,” which makes it a non-starter for a terrorist organization that – along with its state sponsor in Tehran and fellow terrorist groups in the Iranian-directed “axis of resistance” – seems emboldened by October 7.
Set aside for a moment the moral dimensions of rewarding Hamas’s October 7 atrocities with Palestinian sovereignty. The other problem, which does not get nearly enough attention, is the new legal and political status quo that would prevail between Israel and the Palestinians once statehood kicks in.
U.S. policymakers have rightly focused on the need to turn Taiwan into a "porcupine"—that is, giving it sufficient weaponry to deter potential Chinese aggression. However, the island's current insecure energy status is a potentially fatal vulnerability as well—one that, if left unaddressed, might invite hostility from Beijing.
When they look across the Middle East and beyond, Iran and its terrorist minions in the “axis of resistance” must be happy with what they see – a global community that not only refuses to confront their aggression but actually rewards it, laying the groundwork for more war down the road.
President Biden has been pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to invade Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken in recent days blasted Jerusalem for lacking a plan to protect civilians in Gaza. Washington even offered to help Israel gather the intelligence to pinpoint the whereabouts of Hamas officials if Jerusalem abandoned its invasion plans.
After Xi Jinping took power in China in 2012, he promptly began a series of purges and ideological crackdowns that have set the tone for his rule.
On April 13th, the "shadow war" that has raged between Israel and Iran for decades finally broke into the open. That day, Iran's clerical regime fired over 300 drones and missiles at Israeli territory in retaliation for Israel's targeting of a top Iranian military commander in Syria days earlier. The massive Iranian attack, and Israel's limited response days later, has ushered in an ominous new "balance of terror" in the Middle East.
What might Moscow’s endgame be? The ultimate goal seems to be to recreate a Russia-dominated “Union” state that at least some, if not all, of the former Soviet republics will be forced to join.
The global push to stop the bloodshed in Gaza is understandable. But a push that solely pressures the original victim of attack (Israel) and demands nothing significant of the perpetrator (Hamas) will just embolden the latter.
And at home, Iranian regime officials—who not long ago were on the back foot in the face of sustained grassroots protests—have redoubled their domestic repression, launching a sweeping national plan to enforce restrictions on female dress and conduct. What accounts for this reversal of fortune? A great deal can be attributed to permissive American policy.
All proposed solutions to the deterrence problem on the Taiwan Strait require the United States to modernize and expand manufacturing facilities and infrastructure to increase the production and availability of military hardware.
Our most significant achievement during those years was fostering unmediated contact between Western scholars and Soviet social scientists working in the vast network of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The effect was like opening the window of a sealed room.
Instead of hasbara, Israel would do well to embrace a new approach to strategic communications built around speed, engagement, and influence.
While Moscow claims that it wants to replace the “rules-based international order” with a fairer system for all, Russia’s day-to-day behavior seems more appropriate for a rules-free system—one where right is determined simply by muscle and the nerve to use it.
If the Biden administration is intent on keeping the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in place, it would do well to make its existence contingent on a meaningful crackdown against Hezbollah.
Israel and the United States cannot afford to dismiss Iran’s escalatory strike on Saturday as a mere demonstration.
In tandem with its military offensive against Hamas, however, Israel has experienced a deeper strategic shift. A sea change is now taking place in Israel’s approach to security affairs, informed by the errors and miscalculations that made the atrocities of October 7th possible.
Iran is making a serious play for Sudan, and it merits attention from Washington.
Holding back support of aid to Ukraine for fear of worse to come from Russia is a surefire way to ensure that Moscow presses its advantage and engages in still more rogue behavior.
The growing demonization of Israel is not unstoppable.
Cumulatively, these factors will help determine what lies ahead for the Palestinians. But if Team Biden ignores them in favor of quick fixes, or worse still, empty pandering to its constituents, it will only end up perpetuating their misery.
It stands to reason that the sooner the House of Saud launches a serious campaign to convince its own subjects rapprochement with Israel is in their long term interest, the better off the Kingdom will be.
The March 22 attack in Moscow may be a potential portent of things to come. Russia’s Mideast policy has given foreign Islamist militants several excuses for conducting murderous attacks, and Russia’s Muslim minority groups are feeling alienated from, and sometimes hostile to, the prevailing political order.
Rather than part company with reality, U.S. officials and opinion leaders should embrace it. Long-term Israeli-Palestinian peace requires, among other things, a destroyed Hamas, an overhauled Palestinian Authority, and a spirit of co-existence that’s nurtured among the Palestinian people.
The Kremlin, in other words, isn't interested in a negotiated settlement that establishes a new modus vivendi between Moscow and Kyiv. Instead, more than two years into the current conflict, it's never been clearer that the fight between Russia and Ukraine is a life-or-death struggle over identity, independence and indeed Ukraine's very existence.
The app gives the Chinese Communist Party its greatest asymmetric advantage over the U.S.
The conflict once called the “War on Terror” has well and truly returned.
Beijing is already planning to send its first manned mission to the Moon in 2030, followed by the construction of a permanent base there by 2036.
The United States should have a vested interest in directly engaging with this constituency—both to discredit official regime propaganda, which still depicts America as an enemy of the Iranian people, and to lay out its vision for a different, more prosperous Iranian future.
There is no question that many European countries badly — very badly — need to restore their force structures and defense industries. However, they now need to do so within a time frame shorter than it would take to establish an EU-wide procurement system and czar, let alone to alter the bloc’s funding priorities.
Houthis have a lot to gain and little to lose from their maritime operations, which they have depicted as a response to the ongoing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Whether Washington and the West stand by Israel or raise the pressure on it to back off in Gaza may go a long way toward shaping Hezbollah’s next move.
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and its efforts to erase Ukrainian identity, have found a willing accomplice: the government of Putin’s close ally, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.